Modern notebook, portable or other types of personal computers have a number of operating modes such as a normal operation mode in which power consumption is relatively high and a power-saving mode in which power consumption is relatively low. A user can place a notebook PC into a power-saving mode to save power of the notebook PC when the user wants to take a break. Such a notebook PC typically allows a user to perform a predetermined key entry to change the operating mode of the notebook PC according to the key entry, for example, see Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 8-272494
Operating systems of existing notebook personal computers change operating mode, by among other methods, responding to an instruction provided through a key input by a user. However, the operating mode may not be able to be changed immediately, depending on the operating state of a subsystem such as a device driver. In such a case, the user may assume mistakenly that the operating mode has not changed because the key input was not accepted and accordingly may re-enter the key input a number of times. As a result, the operating system changes the operating mode to a power-saving mode while storing or holding the extra instructions input by the user key entries. After the PC subsequently returns to its normal operation mode, it will re-enter the power-saving mode in response to the stored instructions. This phenomenon may also occur when the user attempts to start using the notebook PC and may give the user the impression that the availability of the notebook PC is significantly reduced, which in turn decreases customer satisfaction.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an information processing apparatus, method and program product for preventing mode changes caused by a mistakenly input instruction as described above. The object is achieved by the combination of features set forth in the independent claims herein. The dependent claims define preferable, specific embodiments of the present invention.